Pentagon Asks Lawmakers to Loosen Environmental Laws

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

Published: May 11, 2005

After three unsuccessful tries, the Pentagon is asking Congress again this year to loosen major environmental laws to allow military training exercises around the country to proceed unimpeded.

Military officials say the requested changes, which could be approved this week as part of the defense authorization bill for 2006, are essential to preserve the quality of training and to avoid lawsuits over possible violations of statutes that govern air, water and waste.

With more than 100,000 American military personnel in Iraq, training issues have taken on a heightened sense of urgency, giving the request a better chance of passing this year despite opposition from environmental advocacy groups and state and local governments.

''Workarounds, while sounding reasonable and feasible, cannot sacrifice realistic combat training,'' Paul W. Mayberry, a deputy under secretary of defense, said in a speech last month, referring to interruptions to military exercises. ''All too often, such workarounds chip away at basic fabric and underpinnings of the training objectives.''

Mr. Mayberry cited several examples, including the way troops headed for Iraq learned to roll up their tents, a security issue at night because of the way light reflects off the material. In training, he said, they were faced with ''an environmental requirement'' not to disturb desert tortoises in the training area.

Dozens of groups have complained to Congress that the military's needs are covered by the laws that they seek to change and that waivers would result in conditions getting worse on and around the nation's military bases, endangering the health of millions of people.

As the owner of 425 active bases and more than 10,000 training ranges, the Defense Department is widely regarded as one of the nation's leading polluters, producing vast amounts of chemicals from ordnance that leach into groundwater, as well as air pollution from military vehicles. The Environmental Protection Agency lists more than 130 Superfund sites on military bases.

''Congress would never consider letting the nation's biggest corporate polluter off the hook,'' Heather Taylor, deputy legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a conference call with reporters. ''Why, then, would Congress grant immunity to America's, and the world's, largest polluter?''

Since 2001, the Pentagon has been asking Congress for greater latitude in complying with environmental laws. When it came to birds and animals, lawmakers were willing to compromise, granting exemptions to federal laws. But they have been more resistant to changes that might affect human health under the Clean Air Act; the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, dealing with solid waste; and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, which deals with toxic wastes and is better known as the Superfund law.

A request for changes under those statutes is before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has yet to take it up, and the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is expected to finish a bill by Friday.

Under the changes proposed, the military would have an additional three years to reach compliance with clean air standards in areas where training exercises have produced new levels of pollution. Under the solid waste statutes, the definition of ''solid waste'' for military purposes would no longer include explosives, weapon materials or munitions. And a waiver to the Superfund law would allow the military to cap financial liability for cleaning up toxic sites.

Maj. Susan Idziak, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said the Clean Air Act proposal would give states and the Defense Department adequate time to adjust to emissions from new military readiness activities.

''The department has experienced several close calls where the relocation of military readiness activities could have been stymied by the conformity requirements of the Clean Air Act,'' Major Idziak said.

The other changes, she said, would clarify ''ambiguities in the law'' in the face of two lawsuits against the Defense Department aimed at stopping training, ''potentially setting a precedent that could be applied at any range in the U.S.''

Opponents to the waiver request say the Pentagon has not demonstrated a need to change the laws.

Genaro Lopez, a union leader from San Antonio who participated in the conference call, said health officials there had documented hundreds of cases in recent years of cancer and neuromuscular disease from groundwater contaminated by Kelly Air Force Base, which closed in 1995.

Another participant, Terry Dyer, the organizer of an environmental health group in North Carolina, said contamination from Camp Lejeune that began in the 1940's exposed residents to ''a cocktail of chemicals'' that have caused elevated levels of illness.

Jerry Ensminger, a 24-year Marine veteran based at Camp Lejeune, told Congress last year that his daughter, Jane, was 6 when she she received a diagnosis of leukemia in 1982. She died three years later.

As a result of her death and others, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services, surveyed more than 12,000 women who were pregnant and were living at Camp Lejeune from 1968 through 1985 and found 103 children whose health was compromised in utero by exposure to contaminated water that their mothers drank.

Opponents of the waivers also pointed to Congressional testimony last year in which a senior Pentagon official, in response to questions, offered no examples of complaints involving existing environmental laws.

Ben Cohen, deputy general counsel for environment and installations at the Pentagon, appearing at a joint hearing of two House subcommittees, said that in response to a 2003 query from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, no base commander cited any problems. Nor did Mr. Cohen identify any governor or Environmental Protection Agency official who had complained about the military's compliance with environmental laws.

That prompted Representative John D. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat and the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, to tell Mr. Cohen, ''I am trying to figure out what you are doing here.''